FBI Whistleblower Steve Friend on FISA Surveillance, FBI Misconduct, and Government Overreach | 4/8/26

STEVE FRIEND (00:00.267)

you

KEITH MALINAK (00:04.142)

you

KEITH MALINAK (00:14.894)

Hello, hello, welcome to this edition of At the Mic. I'm your host, Keith Malinak. It's the Wednesday Wildcard where you never know what you're going to get. You know what? Let's change it. Let's change it to Wednesday box of chocolates. Sorry, I'm a sucker for alliteration. We're stick with Wednesday Wildcard. Okay, lots to get to today with my guest. If you haven't followed him yet on X, at real Steve friend, be sure to do that.

Also, be sure to, in fact, you should do it right now while you're thinking about it. You should go over to Spotify and look for his podcast, American Radicals podcast, and subscribe there. Follow it. Get the little, click the bell for notifications, right? Do that for at the Mike show too. We'll wait here for you while you go and take care of that American Radicals podcast. Be sure to go and follow Steve show. He reveals some incredible stuff there, which he's going to do for us here today.

on the Wednesday wild card or Wednesday box of chocolates. We'll workshop that. We'll see what we come up with. Okay, next week at this time, my guest is going to be Stu Breguier, my former boss over at the Blaze. I don't know how many of you knew that, but Stu doing his new, what is it? PredictableShow.com. He's gonna talk to us about that. We've got a lot to talk about. That's just one aspect. So he'll be here one week from today.

Let's see the Thursday deep dive last week if you missed dr. Jeremiah Johnston talking about the resurrection of Christ and all of the Physical evidence that we have of that some great information there. He's gonna come back I think in May we're trying to shore up another date because there's so much more to get to that was last week's deep dive tomorrow's deep dive is gonna be all about childhood vaccines with dr. Jennifer Margulis and she has some very important information that I wish I had when I was a young parent, but that's neither here nor there

Hopefully it can help you or someone in your world the information she's gonna share tomorrow at this time 24 hours from now What else do I have in the old housekeeping list here as always go to ATM show comm where Wes is constantly Putting up the show with all the links all the links you need. Why do I leave the banner up here? I'm getting worse and worse at leaving the banner up here. I'm so sorry ATM show comm is Is the graphic that should have been up there at this point?

KEITH MALINAK (02:39.32)

But there's just too much to remember. So I apologize. But thank you to Wes for always putting up everything over there. And over Instagram at The Mike Show, where Gabby does great work for us. that's what I want to tell you. I just remembered to Friday, Friday at noon Eastern, Steve Day's show. I'm going to be a part of the day's group at 12 o'clock Eastern at the start of that show with Steve and Todd and Aaron. I love those guys. Going to have some fun.

That'll be Friday at noon Eastern. Have I covered everything? My gosh, I'm so sorry you have a guest here, bro. You don't have to just talk for the whole afternoon. Hey buddy, what's up Steve friend?

STEVE FRIEND (03:20.59)

Not much man, you're in high demand if you're going on the day's group, that's a good time

KEITH MALINAK (03:24.91)

I love I have such a great time whenever they have me on over there It's it's truly a lot of fun, and I have no idea you know what I need to check my email Because Aaron sends out the topics you know cuz you've been over there right you've been on the day screw

STEVE FRIEND (03:38.702)

Yeah, I have probably, uh, don't know, a handful of times, four or five, six times. Yeah. He does a pretty good job of giving you the topics ahead of time. So you're hit totally cold.

KEITH MALINAK (03:47.662)

I don't have anything yet. What do you think is going to be? What do you think the topics would be? You think any of them have anything to with Iran?

STEVE FRIEND (03:53.23)

I mean, maybe, maybe a down pilot or two. I'm not sure. Just have your Lindsey Graham prediction ready.

KEITH MALINAK (03:59.916)

Yeah.

man, that's such a setup. Yeah, Steve Dase and the Dase Group, Friday at noon Eastern. You know, I mentioned Spotify. That's where people need to go and follow your show, I think. It pops up in the feed when you got a new thing. I can never remember which days of the week though. I just see it go, Steve's got something new there. What are the days again?

STEVE FRIEND (04:25.71)

Monday through Friday all weekdays

KEITH MALINAK (04:28.729)

No wonder it's popping up so much, bro.

STEVE FRIEND (04:30.882)

Yeah, I'm generating all that content out there, hopefully hitting a few more eyeballs and ears than it has before. And actually was able to cross the threshold to monetize the Spotify. So I'll be able to maybe make my amateurish endeavor into a professional one, or at least, you know, pay for a little bit of the, the, costs to fray those costs to produce it. But yeah, amrad pod where you can type it in there and find it and, generating that air Monday through Friday.

gets posted around like one o'clock.

KEITH MALINAK (05:01.278)

Yeah, that makes it. No wonder it's popping up so much now. Okay, sorry. It's hard to keep up with you because you do have so much information, man. And I appreciate you making time today to go over a lot of that with us here because if people don't know your background, former FBI agent, you stood up to the J6 prosecutions, persecutions against Americans that were just, you know, in the same zip code as the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

And that has led to quite a ride for you and your family. And I am just grateful for you as a friend and as an American. You stood up, you did the right thing, and holy crap, have you suffered and continue to suffer for that. I don't know if you want to get into any of that, but I just want people to know that no way in hell is a thing. Has it all worked out and been all sunshine and lollipops? Has it, sir?

STEVE FRIEND (05:58.964)

No, no, I think that that's kind of by design, regardless of who's in charge. The motivating factor behind it, the incentive structure for the way our government works is they don't want anybody to ever step out of line because that's their goal of a bureaucracy is to get you to grow and material and power and influence and anybody who's not willing to just be a good German or a good American in this case and follow orders is going to be the problem. So you get removed and you pay the

price for that for, I don't know, forever. It seems like that sometimes, but I get a chance. I've gotten a, you you only get to go around once. Got a chance to meet a whole bunch of really interesting people, yourself included, and have a platform, a fledgling one at the time. But at the same time, it's also really rewarding to have the ability to impact some people's days. And, know, I try to do the, think the lunchtime sort of time to get to people and, know, not make it like a

a four hour Joe Rogan podcast, more like 35, 40 minutes and find things that might have slipped past their attention, past the goalie, outside of the two or three topics in every single news source and content creators covering that day.

KEITH MALINAK (07:09.43)

And that's the thing about your show, Steve, is that there are so many things to learn. And I'm not just blowing smoke, man. The stuff you learn on the American Radicals podcast is fascinating and shocking all the time. So in fact, some of those stories, I we got to talk about this one taste wellness company story. It involves an FBI, a dirty agent? No, come on now.

There can't be such a thing as a dirty FBI agent. What's this?

STEVE FRIEND (07:41.578)

No, you just have to ask Sean Hannity. They're all the best.

KEITH MALINAK (07:44.686)

I

STEVE FRIEND (07:46.402)

So this is actually a long time coming. hit my attention. Revolver News has reported on it pretty extensively. Multiple pieces have come out about it. But what you should know is One Taste Wellness Company will keep it family friendly. It was a masturbation focused wellness. I mean, they all need Jesus. Okay. But it was a voluntary to get involved with this thing.

And it was all during the Me Too movement and it caught the attention of Netflix. And Netflix did a documentary on it. And then the FBI got involved because they saw Netflix and they said, we can get in on this Me Too thing. And a bunch of the women who were part of this organization said, well, we were labor trafficked. But what came to pass was that the FBI, the agent involved, his name was Elliot McGinnis and their star witness.

who was one of the victims slash witnesses here. She wrote these journals about her trials and tribulations working for the One Wellness Company. Unfortunately, those journals were written after her experience. They weren't written contemporaneously to document her experiences. She wrote them afterwards with the assistance of the FBI agent. So they generated fake evidence.

KEITH MALINAK (09:05.858)

Well, hold on a second. That's par for the course for the FBI to generate fake evidence or to set people up. this is just kind of, but usually it's before the fact, not after the fact. Anyway, continue.

STEVE FRIEND (09:18.488)

So this guy actually has a long history and it's been also documented. I Frank Report did a pretty good job of collecting all these stories. He's intimidated witnesses before, he's withheld evidence before, he's threatened people. He was an NYPD cop at one point and had a civil complaint against him for punching a guy in the groin. He pointed a gun at an old woman. He tried to set up a civil asset forfeiture of another older woman. So he's kind of a bad dude. He is the lead agent on this case.

the FBI and the Department of Justice bring forward a criminal indictment against two women, the CEO and then the chief sales officer, and they succeed in convicting them both. One is going to federal prison for six years, the other one's going for nine years, I believe at this point. And then they have to pay restitution to the victims, which will amount to about a hundred grand apiece to seven different women. And who knows after taxes and legal fees. And then the...

There's a civil asset forfeiture element where the federal government gets its piece of the pie. So the feds get $12 million and the alleged victims get about a hundred grand, all because the FBI saw Netflix and Me Too and they put a dirty agent on the case who manufactured evidence in order to put otherwise innocent women engaging in lawful but really weird activity into a cage.

KEITH MALINAK (10:45.516)

what percentage of those that work at the FBI would you, Steve Friend, put into the good camp in the bad camp?

STEVE FRIEND (10:55.778)

I think you need to categorize it a little bit into smaller categories because I think most people are kind of just bebopping along, it's a job. And when it's just a job to you, you might be doing things that aren't objectively good, but be kind of unaware of them, right? So can you assign malfeasance to those people, incompetence to those people, ignorance to those people? So it's not really necessarily.

fair to label them wholly as evildoers, but I kind of think that you should be held to that higher standard. If you swear an oath and you carry a gun and a badge and in effect have the ability to take away people's freedom or their life, you should be paying attention better than that. I mean, we can grade them pretty harshly from my perspective. I just don't know if anybody shares that sentiment. I think that the majority of people though, want to do their job. There's a contingency of people who really like are all about the mission and feel like they're very lucky to be there and they're gung ho.

And I counted myself in that group, but then also at the same time was hyper aware of what was going on and monitoring it, making sure that I was always doing the right thing, which kind of made me an enemy of the organization. And then there's the partisan people or the people that are willing to use their power to affect the ends that they want. I say that there's an intersection between them and the climbers, the people who we call blue flamers that they're.

rising so high that they got the afterburners on, they're climbing the ladder so quickly that the flame is actually blue. They're throwing so much diesel and rocket fuel into it. And for those people, they never say no to a bad idea, which is evil, because it's good for their career. And they will do the worst things, even if politically they don't necessarily agree. It's just expedient for their career purposes. And they go along with it, too. So percentage wise,

I would say the worst actors, I mean, it's a single digit number, but they have an outsized level of influence because it's a much higher than single digit number within leadership ranks that are like.

KEITH MALINAK (12:59.502)

Right. Okay. This kind of dovetails into a question I'm going to have for you later on in the program because I've a lot of questions about the old FBI director, Mr. Cash Patel, that I want to ask you. And one of them is kind of along the lines of what you just kind of walked into there. It's like, and maybe this is true of all of government jobs. Maybe it's definitely not unique to the FBI.

Maybe the percentage is larger because they have more power. I don't know. But it's like, these people, are they just bad seeds to begin with? Or does the job make them that? Does it exploit that weakness in them? I know it's not a simple answer and you've already done a good job of laying out a good answer there. But it's just like, it doesn't matter which party is in power.

If it's our guy at the top, my gosh, it's dirty, dirty, dirty, and we're sick and tired of this crap,

STEVE FRIEND (14:03.47)

Well, the FBI specifically exploits weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They love compromised people. The number of people who are in positions of power and authority, allegedly, I mean, who knows, maybe somebody's pulling their strings. And I think in a lot of cases that are who are compromised because they have some sort of extramarital affair. amount of sexual malfeasance that occurs in the FBI. mean, I can't speak to other government agencies, but it's got to exceed most of them.

I mean, when I went to the FBI Academy as a brand new agent, I had to go drive from my house in Savannah, Georgia to Atlanta, which is a four hour drive because I didn't trust FedEx to get the packet information that I needed in order to go to the Academy. And the other reason for that was to sit down with the applicant coordinator, the woman who had helped facilitate my hiring by the FBI, which took four years. the parting thought to me was when you go to the Academy, don't have an affair.

And I looked at her just kind of, was that serious? And she goes, it happens a lot. And I there and I witnessed what went on. And that is with you forever, right? And then when you have that sort of malfeasance and you have to be able to pass a polygraph, you have to be able to not be an insider threat and have black military, that goes both ways. They have that and that.

is the reason why you have some people in high levels of prominence who have the derogatory material. The FBI loves to have that. And then they just kind of go along because they're fearful of that coming out and ruining their turn at the trough here where they're earning between 160 and $180,000 if they're an executive with bonuses on top of that and the ability afterwards when they retired to get a highly lucrative three, four times what they were making in the government job with a

a private public partner for the FBI.

KEITH MALINAK (16:02.734)

Yeah, boy, yeah, that's feels like that's how the CIA would operate too. But anyway, okay. I know years ago, it feels like it was during COVID or shortly after hell, I don't know when did the COVID era end. I remember these Chinese bio labs being discovered in California. And it, I mean, that went away.

You know who else's laboratory thing went away was that eyebrows congressman who can't speak English up in Michigan with the beagles that were left behind in the anyway. Why the beagles? Why I got a cheagle down here at my feet? Why are they always picking on the docile beagles? I'm sick of that. Anyway, but the bio labs in California, there's an update there on that story because I know it's been a while since I've heard about them.

STEVE FRIEND (17:01.55)

There's multiple updates on the story, which is terrifying. So the background for those who don't remember is really Carol, California, where there was a code enforcement officer who happened to notice a green hose outside of a building that was supposed to be abandoned. she went Magnum PI like full on investigated, went up and realized there were lots of Chinese people wearing lab coats and they had goggles and Bunsen burners and

over a thousand mice that were humanized so that they would have the immune responses of humans. They Ebola and vials.

KEITH MALINAK (17:38.258)

it's like a freak show man and that's the thing like i'm the first in line to say all right code enforcement officer cut us some slack with the there's a garden hose hanging out the side come on now but yes i'd forgotten about that yeah and so she discovered all this stuff and then

STEVE FRIEND (17:57.494)

Yeah, so the senate wind up doing an investigation. So they effectively produce a report nothing happens but The the cliff notes are two people get arrested there and the doj charges one of the chinese individual for coronavirus test kits Not for the lab. They they they charge them with covet tests, which is kind of a head scratcher now

It gets kind of nerdy with it with acronyms in it. But what you need to know is that two companies were sort of tied to this lab. Okay. And they had a fire. So they call out saying, Hey, we want to come check on you on the lab. The government is calling them and say, can we, can we see if everything's on the up and up and safe? And the company responds back. actually we sold all our business interests were shut down here. Meanwhile, they're running this off the books lab. And they said all of our interests are actually in Las Vegas.

with a different company. No one follows up with it at all. It just left out there. Well, wouldn't you know, the update was a couple months ago, there was another Chinese lab found in Las Vegas. This company owned this second lab. Exact same thing. A bunch of Chinese people were in lab coats with bunsen burners, got some mice, got some suspicious vials filled in there, and they wind up charging another guy in there who was the landlord, who was an Israeli citizen.

with a French passport and they get him because he has guns. He's not supposed to have guns.

KEITH MALINAK (19:32.46)

Okay, so this is different than the Israeli guy in Las Vegas trying to hook up with a young girl. Yeah, it's a different Israeli guy in Las Vegas. I just make it sure.

STEVE FRIEND (19:39.308)

Yes. We're having to keep track of them. So like a really suspicious international connection there. So you have an Israeli and then you have a Chinese national. But in essence, our federal government, the FDA, they wouldn't follow up on the secondary lab. And this is on the heels of a Senate investigation. And the FBI could only bring charges for COVID tests, not for a

bio lab that was unapproved in California and a second one now in Las Vegas. My question is, are we going to stop looking for bio labs again? Is this going to be like the pipe bombs where it's like, we found two. So it's probably it, right? Nobody's going to continue looking for it. I find it really hard to believe that they've been successful in establishing two of these locations, that there aren't more all over the country.

KEITH MALINAK (20:38.018)

between the incompetence and the manufacturing of crimes in our own government and this kind of infiltration and this kind of obvious malfeasance brewing out there.

STEVE FRIEND (21:01.39)

It's truly...

KEITH MALINAK (21:04.898)

fascinating to sit here and think, how do we not have a tragedy a day? just thank you God. mean, seriously, I just don't even know how because we are the world's number one target to begin with. And then on top of all of this, the manufacturing of crimes or like I said, the the outright just stupidity in our in the ranks. I just

It's shocking that we're safe as we are.

STEVE FRIEND (21:38.434)

I think we're safe in large part almost accidentally or maybe intentionally by pop culture because pop culture, TV and movies, there's always an FBI agent story. mean, it's just a very interesting line of work and it lends itself to these great stories, which can be very entertaining, but they're nowhere close to realistic. But it also generates this myth, this myth of competence where you think that they're the best of the best.

And that plays well for the FBI, for the American people, because they think, these guys are awesome. We have no problem with them intruding on our civil liberties. We have no problem with funding them with billions of dollars. And we're going to accept everything they say because they're just the best. I think simultaneously, the evildoers who are would-be enemies might think the same thing and say, certainly. mean, take it out of the FBI context. Secret service, same thing, right? Certainly.

I would never crawl up a slightly sloped roof within 150 yards of the president because I'll get smoked right away. And then somebody actually tries it one day. How many would be assassins were like, darn it, I could have got that shot off. Seriously. Right? I think that that's, I mean, a lot of that is because of the myth of competence.

KEITH MALINAK (22:53.768)

Myth of competence Steve friend ladies and gentlemen is constantly coming up with the greatest One-liners man descriptors. What was the other one that my gosh? The the the process is the punishment

STEVE FRIEND (23:09.154)

Process is the punishment. then we had malicious compliance last night.

KEITH MALINAK (23:12.662)

just compliance. If y'all don't know these terms, you got to watch and listen to American radicals podcast or or whenever Steve friend is on here on at the mic because he lays them out man. He's got him. He's got him. You got to get a copyright some of these put them on t shirts.

STEVE FRIEND (23:27.662)

Put him on show titles on the American Raffles podcast for memorialization.

KEITH MALINAK (23:32.268)

There you go. I like that. I like that. OK, so what is Operation Box Cutter? And why have I not heard about that? In fact, I haven't heard anything negative about Box Cutter since 9-11. What's going on here?

STEVE FRIEND (23:45.72)

Well, that was a operation that the FBI was touting recently that they had wound up charging people and it dealt with fentanyl production from China. So as background for this, a few months back, Cash Patel flew to China, which

KEITH MALINAK (24:01.9)

I thought you were to say Nashville. Kyle Seraphine is updating us on the...

STEVE FRIEND (24:04.864)

I don't know that was last night

That was last night when he dropped his girl friend off.

KEITH MALINAK (24:13.402)

on the government dime. Just congratulations. You went to work today. You paid for a first class ticket on a private jet. You had no idea. Continue, Steve.

STEVE FRIEND (24:21.194)

yeah, you also paid for the full-time SWAT team that protects her. Yeah, we can get into that. But the flight that he took to China, which was very expensive because they can't keep the plane in China. They're worried about the comms, communications, electronics being subverted, and hacked. So they have to drop him off and fly to a friendlier area and then fly back to pick him up. It's a very expensive trip. He signed some sort of agreement with China.

And he came back touting it like Chamberlain was having a signature with Hitler. I have an agreement from the Chinese that they're going to cooperate with us on fentanyl, right? And he said, we have just saved tens of thousands of lives. mean, no further information, no proof, no statistics, unfalsifiable. And we have Operation Boxcutter. They have now arrested, I think, three.

I think it's three, it might be four Americans. And then they say, we've indicted 22 Chinese nationals, four Chinese companies, all of them they're in China. So all those 22 nationals, they're not Americans who get arrested, are in China and will never be arrested. The companies, they can't put out a business, so they're in China. And they relied heavily on Chinese intelligence in order to push this investigation along.

KEITH MALINAK (25:27.349)

I love this.

STEVE FRIEND (25:49.122)

because I guess they're taking it on face value that the shy comes who are sending the fentanyl over here, opium war style are just giving the top notch intelligence of the FBI. It's more pompom waving gold sticker awarding. And they hope that you don't actually read the press releases. Which the most recent one didn't include this. And I just remembered this case and I happened to go back and do a little bit of Googling and found it. I was like, yeah, yeah, it wasn't three people. It was 22.

that's right, because they were all in China and unarrestable outside of our hammer of justice.

KEITH MALINAK (26:25.457)

I think that is so important how you dropped the opium wars knowledge in there because people don't understand that that is the perfect analogy. What China is doing to the United States has already been done to China through the opium wars, the 1800s. I don't know when, when was it exactly? 1800s, right? Well, anyway, so they are doing to us.

We're just, you know, there's so much context there in China has such a long term vision that it's terrifying on its surface. And then you think, ah, I'll probably only see a little bit of it in my lifetime because that's a long term plan. but what are you going to say? Because I want to make an

STEVE FRIEND (27:13.582)

I said culturally, think in a far longer term. Where TikTok culture, their TikTok tells them to play musical instruments and do science experiments. Ours tells us to do Tide Pod challenges. And even our leaders are on a election cycle that lasts for two years. China is thinking 10, 50, 100 years.

KEITH MALINAK (27:35.736)

Yeah, I like a year into it and already running for reelection again in many cases. Okay, but yeah, look, we need a pitch clock just to sit through a baseball game. They're looking generations ahead. But you mentioned something there that I think it's overlooked. And until I started listening to your stuff, I absolutely overlooked it. You're driving in, you listen to the top of the hour news, and it says something like...

The FBI has arrested three Americans and indicted 22 Chinese nationals. they go, wow, they're staying busy. They're out there protecting me and my family. And then you listen to them. Then later in the day, you listen to Steve and they're like, yeah, they're all in China. They'll never be extradited to face charges. But yeah, keep telling everyone that you got 25 people busted here anyway. So that's just one of those fun facts that you learn when you listen to the American Radicals podcast.

So Pam Bondi, since we last spoke, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, been fi- I'm sorry, has decided to go to the private sector and-

STEVE FRIEND (28:42.035)

Well, she can't spend time with her family because I don't think she has any.

KEITH MALINAK (28:45.384)

so you can't put that in the press release. You got to say private sector. That's the hierarchy. The first choice is spend more time with my family. The second one might be health issues. Yeah, that's up there. Private sector. those are your it's going to be one of those three whenever somebody in a in a a prominent government position leaves before the end of a term. So we haven't talked since then. You and I, I'm surprised Fox News hasn't.

STEVE FRIEND (28:55.596)

Health issues,

KEITH MALINAK (29:14.702)

put out the press release yet, unless I missed it, that she's going to have her own show over there.

STEVE FRIEND (29:20.584)

she's getting a contributorship like next week. I mean we know she's

KEITH MALINAK (29:23.874)

She has her own office, or at least a cubicle over

STEVE FRIEND (29:27.054)

And then Ballard Partners will bring her right back so she can go back to lobbying.

KEITH MALINAK (29:31.434)

Okay, see? See, look at that. Tell me, hold on, you know what? Let me throw this out there, because you made me think of this, but we'll get back to Pam Bonney. I put out a tweet out yesterday. I'm sure it was genius how it was worded, but what I was trying to say is that, you know, the way the... I'll never find it, y'all. So I'm not stalling. Scroll, scroll, scroll, Right, right, so...

STEVE FRIEND (29:55.178)

sniffing like Casper Tell as you scroll.

KEITH MALINAK (29:59.374)

And the way I worded this was that, you know, Congress will never hold itself to, and I'm just asking, this is off topic. I'm just asking because you're an intelligent guy and I think you might have a strong opinion on this maybe. I'm going to, he's like, what the hell is he about to ask me? The Congress can't get anything done that we want them to get done. Like, you know, how about no more insider trading? Here's the tweet. We need a Congress for Congress to make laws for the, you it was worded beautifully.

to make laws for the main congress. Their only function. mean the only function of this congress and I'm not talking about you know 430 I'm talking about let's 25 25 25 right uh in turn the main congress can make laws for this I went and I found like some fancy schmancy sounding latin type word extra's congress or maybe that's from a harry potter

STEVE FRIEND (30:32.526)

It's just.

KEITH MALINAK (30:47.77)

Spell anyway would stop insider trading for politicians. No slush fund for their harassment memory, you know all this stuff, right? They forced them to make a freaking budget Maybe term limits, although I'm the only person America I think who's against that but a lot of great comments here a lot of thoughtful folks follow me over over on X at Keith Malinak But I like this one from Rishi jr. Sure. That's what we need more slimebags in DC But what was the one?

Somebody said, it's just gonna set up more corruption. I mean, it's more people to corrupt up there. So I don't know, is that stupid? You can say it's just stupid and we can move on. Congress for the Congress.

STEVE FRIEND (31:27.918)

I think you're thinking outside the box and that's the only way that if you were going to try to give the old college try to fix it. No, I mean, I think you got to go back and get rid of the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 where the Congress effectively gave legislating ability to the executive branch because they didn't want to legislate anymore. They just want to run for reelection and they just wanted to pass broad laws without any specifics that say that this agency shall

KEITH MALINAK (31:35.095)

Yeah, you won't hurt my feelings if you tell me.

STEVE FRIEND (31:56.586)

regulate the waterways. And then the EPA says there's a public backyard and that's 1946. And then I think, why don't we, as much as we're talking about insider training and operating, what if we just made the paycheck for being a member of Congress, like five to $10 million? That would attract a higher level of people who are uber competent, not saying they're good, but at least

they're going to be higher intelligence people because right now we've got essentially midwits. We've got people who are one chapter ahead of the book than the people who are voting for them. So the people who are voting for them are thinking, this guy knows his stuff. He knows all the stuff that I know, plus some, not that much more. They're just a little bit better communicators. They know a little bit more than the most people. But if you had some actual sharks out there, some apex predators who were like, I'm going to

Use my intellect to go get $10 million. That's a drop in the bucket, the federal budget. And you could also make it contingent on they need to do certain things. You get a finder's fee. You get a success fee. $10 million are nothing. A contingency like lawyers do. You're all lawyers anyway. You work on contingency. You don't get paid unless you pass a budget. Done. Balanced budget.

KEITH MALINAK (33:16.686)

I like that. Actually, I do like that. know, it's almost impossible to believe that it wasn't that long ago, kids. I'm talking the 1990s that we had budget surpluses two years in a row. It's mind blowing to think that. Anyway, OK, so back to Pam Bondi. So what do you think?

precipitated that. What are your thoughts on that? And I agree, I saw in the comments there, Susan said that she doesn't think Blanche is going to do any better. Man, that guy, when you watch a press conference with him, he's so combative. It's like, chill out, bro. So he's not going to be any better. We're about five minutes away. I'm sorry. Depends on how long it takes to get back there.

Have you seen the stock market in a while? I was about to say we're about five minutes away from a 50,000 Dow quote from him, but it's coming. It's coming.

STEVE FRIEND (34:17.053)

Sick offensives high and that's what Donald Trump did. He populated a lot of people in the Department of Justice from his legal teams. Pam Bondi was I think she represented him in the impeachment, the first one. She was on that team. And then you had Blanche who was in the Manhattan trial, Emil Bove. She'd even, Cash Patel was out there testifying to grand juries, the voter stuff. And as a result, they know that they have to express fealty to the dear leader. I call it the MAGA land acknowledgement.

So whenever you ask a question, you have to say first and foremost, I want to thank our great and amazing president. And that's the same way that we acknowledge that we're standing on stolen ground if you're a communist, right?

KEITH MALINAK (34:59.412)

is awesome. Continue please.

STEVE FRIEND (35:04.654)

So Pam Bonney came in with a generational opportunity to defang the attack dog that is the Department of Justice, specifically like an FBI, and completely didn't do it. She said, well, we can get power for our purposes. And that's Tolkien teaches us that that can't be done. And instead, think the millstone around her neck and as is around all of the Epstein administration at this point's neck is the Epstein case, right?

KEITH MALINAK (35:33.378)

Did just call it the Epstein administration?

STEVE FRIEND (35:35.648)

Yeah, so as long as we're on the topic of new terms, I'm going to be introducing this tomorrow. Let's Go Brandon equivalent is the Epstein administration because it needles them. have all the institutional power and they will have steam coming out of their ears when you say it.

KEITH MALINAK (35:54.188)

I love that.

STEVE FRIEND (35:55.456)

And it's not insulting. It's just, it's just me saying, I know you're lying. Let's go.

KEITH MALINAK (36:04.882)

the FBI agents because he just he made it almost felt like it was an honest mistake No, no, he's just that smooth and look I think it just it's part and parcel for everyone in the Epstein administration to be like I'm sorry. What was that? I love that anyway. All right, so continue on

STEVE FRIEND (36:22.894)

Her mandate, the American people wanted, was the Epstein List. Not because the Epstein List gave us so much. It is salacious. It is really important, the specifics of that case. But the ultimate fundamental question is, do we have a two-tiered system of justice? We need to have that question adjudicated for us in this administration. Will you give us that answer? And she punted as long as possible. She filibustered, it's on my desk. I'm going to do a...

binder gate and she embarrassed herself and she embarrassed those influencers who got really mad. And then she said on Fox News when she was auditioning for the contributorship, I had a mole tell me that those files are in the Southern District of New York in the United States Attorney's Office, to which I say the mole is your subordinate, the employee who works for you, which means that you need employees to be moles. That means you don't control the Department of Justice. Then she continued to filibuster.

And we took it into the summer months into July over the July 4th weekend, flooding in Texas, nobody paying attention. That's when they dropped into Axios or closing the case. There's no file list. We're not going to be doing anything, but they were not smart with it because that got rid of their cover for action that said ongoing investigation. can't reveal that information right now. And that's when Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey and all the others were like, well, it's done.

turn it over to us, there's nobody bad, you gotta give it. They waited and waited, we finally get the EPSTEEN Transparency Act through, almost unanimous, signed immediately by the president, who didn't want to sign it, who didn't want it, but he yielded to pressure, he acquiesced, he is a populist, he knew that people wanted it, and still the directive was don't hand it over, don't hand it over. She fought and fought and fought, tooth and nail, and eventually just did the malicious compliance thing, handed out millions of documents, which is not all of the documents.

At best it's half, but it's nowhere close to that. And a giant pallet dump, like you would do if you were a Barack Obama with cash on a pallet to Iran, and it was disorganized and contained information that was erroneous and from crazy people, and they basically just threw their hands up and said, you all deal with it, we're done here. And then that didn't pass muster, so Pam Bondi had to go and she committed the ultimate sin. And she publicly embarrassed the president, her

STEVE FRIEND (38:45.366)

Ability to communicate was always lacking as much auditioning as she does for Fox News. She's just not a great communicator She's not able to stand up there talk off the top of her head pull the words and the ideas out and she embarrassed herself and that's when we got the Dow was at 50,000 Which was a complete non-sequitur right? I think I said to the effect of the impression that I do of her is Donald Trump is the most transparent president since

ever. And the Dow is at 50,000. You can't do enough MAGA land acknowledgments at that point to cover. And they wanted to see if they could off the millstone around her neck, find her a nice comfortable landing place over at Fox, back at Ballard Partners, we'll bring in Todd Blanch, who's a much better communicator. He's more authoritative. He's very combative. And that's what Trump likes. He actually looks the part.

He's a litigator. I don't think Pam Bonney really was a litigator. And then we just got from him on Fox News with was it Jesse Waters. He said, we're done with Epstein as much time as we spent on it last year. I want to see the inverse of it this year. So he's going to continue to do that too. So the question ultimately that I'll throw back to you, Keith, is I think Pam Bonney failed with Epstein. My question is, did she fail at covering it up enough or did she fail at revealing it enough?

she chose the middle of the road and got run over by a tractor trailer, she had to pick a lane.

KEITH MALINAK (40:15.054)

So that was kind of my next question was gonna be for you. Do you think she was in on the cover up from the beginning or was she just kind of like, I need you in my office for five minutes. I've got to lay it down here for you and how you're gonna proceed. Do you think that that was more the likely scenario?

STEVE FRIEND (40:32.078)

I think that as the attorney general, it's largely ceremonial. I think that she probably was told things and just took that information because she just wanted to move on and not think about it. Now, there could have been a directive. I do suspect that our president wants Epstein done. I he was the one saying, are we still talking about Epstein? I think he has friends in there. He wants it done. So she was probably trying to do MAGA land acknowledgement in action and cover as long as she could.

But as far as knowing the intricate details, I don't think she's looked at it. Anytime any one of these high ranking principals, be it the attorney general or the FBI director, the former co-deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, when he got out there, they always say the same thing. I've been briefed on everything with this file. That's a big deal. You were briefed. You know the word brief? It means short. It means that somebody looked at all the stuff and gave you the wave top.

the 30,000 foot view. So you haven't seen it all, but when you say it quickly people think, oh well he's seen the whole file. No, he's been briefed on the whole file. Well who's the briefer? Those are the entrenched bureaucrats, those are the people that are in that 1 % demographic who are the evildoers, who are doing what they can to protect the agency or to get their political ends that they want, and they're the ones that are providing the information to the principals to then take out and embarrass themselves.

KEITH MALINAK (41:52.078)

Yeah, yeah, I often wonder when someone is in a position like that Because I in fact, oh here it is right here. There we go a lot of times on the Wednesday wild card I like to do a little Keith book club and shame on me because I don't know if somebody borrowed this book from me or if I just lost it and my pile of crap over there, but this book here that I'm gonna talk about at some point I'll just briefly say when you've read when you've read a book like the gatekeepers by Chris Whipple

Yes, I know he's a liberal. I don't care. It's behind the scenes. It's awesome. And it's just the chiefs of staff for the presidents from I think this starts at Ford and goes right up until the first Trump administration. But when we see these public figures like a Pan-Bondi, and I could sit here and name so many, that how many of them are just taking the fall and looking like idiots because they're the good soldiers? And how many of them are just incompetent? It's hard to know.

And every case is different. And so that's why with Pam Bondi, I just don't know if she was, but like you said earlier, he knew her well long before she was in that role as attorney general. So she probably was part of the interview process, hiring process was, and when Epstein comes back up, this is what you're gonna, like, don't know. But that's what I wanted to ask you is,

First of all, why did Matt Gaetz, was Matt Gaetz just not going to be approved? Because he was the first choice for that role. Do we think that he would have done a different job, a better job? Why did that just vaporize like that?

STEVE FRIEND (43:35.062)

I mean, maybe it's assigning more credit than is due, but if I had to put a theory out there, I think that Matt Gaetz was going to be a bridge too far for all the Democrats and a lot of the Republicans. It was almost a troll, but it was a useful troll. Now, from what I understand, Matt Gaetz went into the office and pitched himself as saying, I'm going to lop off f'ing heads. I don't know if that's true or not. I would have loved to see it. But if we put this guy out there.

he can absorb all of the wrath and we can maybe get through the other people like the RFK or the Tulsi Gabbard or the other buddy who's controversial. And then he doesn't really want the job or is not expecting the job. He even left Congress. So I think he's probably done with Washington, D.C. anyway, and went on and he's got a TV deal and he lives in Florida some of the time, lives in California. I think he's a very well off family, too. So he's just

very comfortable. So he kind of did that as a kamikaze mission. This is my theory. And then Donald Trump really likes blonde women of a certain age. And that's Pam Bondi. And she was the attorney general in Florida. So she does have that bona fide and could come in and do it. Now, I mean, I was even just curious because I looked it up. You don't have to be an attorney to be the attorney general.

KEITH MALINAK (45:02.935)

Wow.

STEVE FRIEND (45:03.946)

There's never not been an attorney and it says it's very, 1700s, this language, like somebody who's learned in the law, but that doesn't, I mean, I'm learned in the law. So as far as finding somebody out there, they're not doing casework as an attorney general. I'm kind of surprised we don't have more of an administrator, somebody who's highly aggressive at reorganizing the whole thing. I mean,

I'd love to see an Elon Musk be the attorney general, not because he's going to bring cases, but because he could streamline that thing.

KEITH MALINAK (45:40.032)

Okay. Look, I'm here for that. That would be a lot of fun. They have to get approved though. That's what sucks. That's what sucks. I just want to say greatest audience ever is the At the Mic audience and Born Genius. Thank you for every time I mention a book. She puts up the title of the book there. The Gatekeepers, How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency by Chris Whipple.

STEVE FRIEND (46:03.424)

It's the type of book that people put on their coffee table and to imply just how smart they are, but you actually read it.

KEITH MALINAK (46:09.582)

I'm the world's slowest reader and I couldn't put this thing down.

STEVE FRIEND (46:14.648)

Did it take the place of decision points by George W. Bush in the Malinac household?

KEITH MALINAK (46:22.638)

Look, I can only throw my hundred year old grandmother into the bus just slightly here.

I love her to death and she loves reading still at this age. she has this show, she'll get this book. And that was recently. So when I come over there, she'll have like a stack of mail that she's gotten that I need to go through bills, stuff like that, take this and whatever. And then she'll put a book that she's ordered from Amazon or something like that. She has us order for her anyway. And then when she's done reading it, I know when I order it like,

gonna end up in the stack one day. So I come over there recently. It's so funny you said that because underneath the mail was the she's like and then take that book too and I was like please don't let it be decision. It's decision points. It's the Bush book. Okay. Thanks. Half price books is gonna enjoy buying that back. No, I'm sorry. No, we're gonna totally read it Totally. Okay.

STEVE FRIEND (47:22.35)

I'll admit, Keith, I read it. I read you really? I did. How was it? I mean, it's presenting himself very favorably for obvious reasons. mean, it's his memoir. But with the exception of the, what was it, like the AIDS, that he goes off a really long time about it.

KEITH MALINAK (47:46.542)

and he goes over and starts doing his crazy dancing.

STEVE FRIEND (47:49.422)

Yeah. And that's kind of odd, but I ultimately got away, came away with, I disagree with this dude on a lot of stuff, but I think his, he was approaching it from somebody who didn't hate the country. Whereas I think Barack Obama hated the country. it, know, motivations aside and they both did a crappy job. So I'm a results guy, but like, I can hang out with that guy.

KEITH MALINAK (48:08.45)

Yeah. Yeah.

STEVE FRIEND (48:19.0)

Like, it wouldn't offend my sensibilities.

KEITH MALINAK (48:21.996)

Yeah, no, I don't doubt that. will say, though, perfect, perfect segue. Where's my? Because yesterday I was talking about Iran or something. I don't know what started the discussion, but. And I'm this is what we do on Wednesdays. We take we take side roads and I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to come right back here. Just bear with me. But.

I realize that, let me go back to 2003. 2003, my instinct, this has nothing to with Iran right now, y'all, okay? It might when we have the conversation, but 2003, my gut instinct on Iraq, initially was I was against it, okay? But if I had to place a vote in Congress, I would have voted to go to Iraq, okay? Based on the evidence that was presented.

That was a tough decision for me, but I ultimately agreed, let's go to Iraq. Okay, now, clearly, 20 something years later, we're like, okay, ho, let's revisit that. And I have discovered over the years, mostly in recent years, the incredible amount of lies that were sold to people like me from the Bush administration.

that I can't get over. And I thought, you know what, yesterday hit me in this tweet thread. I was like, you I need to do a show. We need to have a presentation on the lies that were sold to the American public to get us into war in Iraq. And that's what we're going to do on the Thursday Deep Dive a couple of weeks now. And I am so excited to have that conversation because there is so much that I have learned from.

various voices in recent years and one book in particular. It was very helpful and we're going to have this conversation a couple weeks on the deep dive. So anyway, that's Thursdays at 3 p.m. Eastern. Sorry to get on that little tangent there, but I don't disagree with you that he'd be fun to have a beer with or go to the I'd like to sit in that that that I don't know what it's called Crawford box. Is that no that's a maybe that's Houston. I can't remember anymore, but right there behind home plate there. I mean, I want to sit there with him at a Rangers game.

KEITH MALINAK (50:37.038)

I don't even care who they're playing. It could be the A's. It doesn't matter. Anyway, but there you go. That's where we're at though. What you said there is so sad that that's where we're at. And I said the same thing about Trump. I've said, you know what? It's nice that we have a president who doesn't hate America for a change because we had eight years of Obama, four of Biden, and even Bill Clinton.

didn't like a lot of this country. But the difference between a Bill Clinton presidency, man, you talk about tangents, Malinak, the difference between a Bill Clinton presidency and a Barack Obama presidency is Obama just hated America. Bill Clinton was just, he was from that self-interested generation. He was just a selfish kind of guy. You know what I mean?

He's just go with the flow, whatever. Now, of course, he did betray the, you know what? This is getting way off tangent here.

STEVE FRIEND (51:38.1)

I mean, you gotta do the blind test, right? If you had a candidate come out, look, we're in the midterm year, but let's just flash forward because we're always in election season, 2028. If you had a candidate who, and it's not aspirational, guaranteed that this would happen, all right? I'm going to cut the budget to $2 trillion. All right? I'm going to deport more illegal aliens than have ever been deported. I'm going to have a

balanced budget. And I'm going to be harder on abortion than anybody in recent memory.

Okay. You vote for Bill Clinton.

KEITH MALINAK (52:23.33)

nice. Look, I like what you did there. sorry, I was Googling. How much money, and I'll get back to your question there. How much money does the federal government spend approximately every year? the two trillion, I think, where was it in the Bush administration? I think it was late in the Bush administration. We were still at two trillion a year. You're saying we're gonna go back to a two front war budget.

STEVE FRIEND (52:33.294)

About seven. Over seven trillions.

KEITH MALINAK (52:52.992)

of two trips happened. You talk about being overton windowed.

STEVE FRIEND (52:57.646)

We were at 4 trillion before coronavirus.

KEITH MALINAK (53:01.62)

Okay, so I mean you talk about being overton windowed into Bill Clinton I'll never forget when I was sitting in the McDonald's in Clinton, New Jersey and sitting there and I look up and it's a press they're in the press room Obama's president and He turns over the microphone to Bill Clinton and I and I feel like in hindsight I feel like

that meme with Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes, give us that. Make that guy the president again, please. But in the 90s, I mean, I'm this geeky teenager who's like, this is the worst time in American history. Yeah.

STEVE FRIEND (53:35.406)

And Bob Dole it would have been so much better.

KEITH MALINAK (53:39.662)

yeah, let me, I need a pen here. I mean, miss Norm MacDonald so much, man. Okay, so a lot of tangents there. I don't know how we got there, but this book, Gatekeepers, go check it out. Okay, so Pam Bondi, Matt Gaetz, yeah, I think you're right. He would have absorbed a lot of fire during the nomination process specifically. Didn't everybody get through that stuck around for a vote? Like no vote defeated anyone.

A few people withdrew.

STEVE FRIEND (54:09.806)

There might have been some withdrawals, but I think everybody that made it to the vote because they had the numbers. And really, at that point, you were relying on a couple of Republicans like the Collins and the Murkowski's and the Tillis's, and they were OK with enough of them. I think they expended a lot of their own political capital on the Matt Gaetz because the instant reaction to it that they were all out there on social media and media and screaming about it. And the guy never actually went to a hearing.

KEITH MALINAK (54:37.56)

There you go. There you go. OK. Is Washington. I've got to do another tangent here.

I just, I don't even think it's fixable. and when I say it, I mean anything in DC. Like it's not, it's all beyond repair. just, it's demoralizing. You know what? Don't answer that. Let me go to my next question, which isn't going to be much better now that I think about it. No, actually, I don't want to get to this stuff yet. Hang on. I still have a, did I, tell me about, because you mentioned on your show last week,

something about Amazon taking down your friend. Does that ring a bell? Because you mentioned it in passing. I was like, I got to get more information. What was that all about?

STEVE FRIEND (55:26.91)

Amy Nelson, a friend of mine, acquaintance, I met her right after my name became public and found out about her family's story, which is utterly atrocious. So Amy Nelson, her husband, his name is Carl, worked, Carl worked for Amazon and he left Amazon to go pursue his own real estate ventures, had their permission and all of that. And then as it came to find out,

when the FBI knocked on their door at six o'clock in the morning with search warrants, he was being investigated and eventually indicted and charged with honest services fraud, which is one of the worst overly broad federal laws possible, Keith. Honest services fraud is you just are a crummy employee and that's a federal crime. mean, essentially that's what it means. And because she's an attorney and a

absolute bulldog and refused to bend the knee to this government, they seized the family's wealth entirely. Civil asset forfeited everything they owned, left them with no money, took the money out of the attorney's coffers who they'd retained, took the money out of her father, who they were financially providing his bank account to pressure him, her husband, Amy's husband, Carl, to plead guilty to this charge. The federal government

got two of his former colleagues and did the same thing to them and got them to plead guilty and said, if you plead guilty and testify against Carl, then we'll give you a sweetheart deal. And then she found out that the Amazon lawyers lobbied Department of Justice. It's in records that she uncovered a hundred times. They sent attorneys to the Department of Justice who they used to work for because that's what happens. They left DOJ and went to work for Amazon.

They went back to their buddies and said, we need you to charge Carl Nelson with a crime. And essentially what it boils down to was Amazon needed somebody who was in their employee at a certain period of time to be charged with a crime in order to negate and nullify some contract. Then it would be a dead letter. And that would get them out of this contract that they were not happy with at this point. They fought and fought and fought for years.

STEVE FRIEND (57:47.714)

Got it to a judge, the judge looked at the case and said, this is such an egregious abuse and a miscarriage of justice. This case is tossed and I'm tossing out the guilty pleas from the other guys too. And completely exonerated Carl. And the DOJ still wouldn't give them their money back. They negotiated with the federal government and signed basically NDAs, not NDAs, we're gonna promise to not sue you.

if you give us 80 % back of the money that is already ours. And I know Amy, I got her in contact with people who are currently in the Epstein administration. You have to do something for this woman. It was on the slide deck that my buddies and I prepared for Cash Patel as being examples of FBI weaponization. These people need to see justice and she's been left, her family's been ignored. Now they've been ignored in a good sense that there's no more.

from what we know, criminal prosecutions or investigations of them, but they never saw themselves made whole.

KEITH MALINAK (58:54.862)

I tell you, mean, the deep state is undefeated. Evil, feels like, is undefeated. It's just, it's tragic. It's so sad. mean, you are sapping time, wealth, happiness, energy, just by this behemoth government that when you hear stories like that,

STEVE FRIEND (58:57.102)

They have four little girls.

KEITH MALINAK (59:24.17)

It's hard to tell the difference between the United States and the rest of the world. don't say that, Keith. Yeah, when you're living the lives that people like he says, the Nelsons and people like Steve Friend himself, he won't. Steve won't say it. So I'll say it for him. When you're living the experiences that they are having as American citizens going up against this this federal monster, evil monster and Brian Cole Jr., who we're going to get into.

I mean, it's so demoralizing. And you think back of all the things you taught your kids and you think, holy crap, I taught them lies, man. That's my bad. It's just, okay. You have something else on this or do you want me to move on? I'm sorry.

STEVE FRIEND (01:00:12.206)

Well, Amy Nelson, you should know she's got a Twitter profile. She's actually bigger on TikTok. She had a fairly sizable TikTok and she was able to push out messages about it all the time to the point where the DOJ tried to put a gag order under TikTok.

KEITH MALINAK (01:00:25.664)

Why? That's interesting.

STEVE FRIEND (01:00:27.566)

She's the wife of the subject, but you know.

KEITH MALINAK (01:00:30.112)

Isn't that interesting how the government seeks to shut people up that they just disagree with again something we'll get into here in just a second. Is it I'm just looking here. It's not Amy. Yeah Amy K. Nelson. I she follows me. I follow her. Perfect. OK just want to make sure. OK cool. I need to pay closer attention to that account then. She's living the experience.

STEVE FRIEND (01:00:54.198)

As you should know her background, she was an Obama bundler. She came from the granola eating left and they were living in Seattle. mean, they were healthily on the left and became very red-pilled about government weaponization. Allegedly that's what Todd Blanch, that was the genesis of his move from the Democrat party to the Republican party defending Donald Trump against weaponized government.

KEITH MALINAK (01:00:57.877)

my goodness!

KEITH MALINAK (01:01:20.386)

The irony, it's so thick. Okay. yeah, I know that one of the things that you are big at keeping us abreast of is the FISA renewal. Tell us what's going on there.

STEVE FRIEND (01:01:36.834)

While we're waiting, the FISA renewal is up on the 20th. April 20th is when FISA expires. But there was a recent hearing the intelligence community came in to the Senate to testify. had Tulsi Gabbard and Cash Patel and John Ratcliffe, all these different principals within the IC who were testifying. And the question arose about FISA. And it came out that President Trump favors a clean renewal.

of FISA 702 and then you have all these stalwarts of conservatism, small government guys like Jim Jordan, Jim spelled with a G, saying, I was against FISA before, but now that Trump's in office, I'm going to vote for it. So my guess is they're going to go with a full reauthorization clean, maybe attach it to a Department of Homeland Security funding bill so nobody gives it too much scrutiny.

But there's a couple of elements that people need to know. And I know that the claim is that there were 50 some odd reforms put into the last renewal 18 months ago, and that those have been sufficient.

KEITH MALINAK (01:02:42.414)

Real quick that maybe aren't familiar, what does FISA do?

STEVE FRIEND (01:02:47.8)

So, FISA 702 is a counterintelligence tool. It allows your government to surveil electronics and communications of a non-American when they are in not American. They're Oconus and working on behalf of another government. So, we want to find out what this Chinese spy who's living in China is doing. We can look at his communications. Well, communications are two ways, right? There's a recipient and a sender.

And you should know also, before I get to that, if that Chinese guy comes to America, we have to turn it off. We can't listen to him when he's in America. Because it says they have to be out of America. Now when he goes back to China, we can turn it back on and check his spam box or trash folder of his email, right? So there are ways around it to get it. But communications are two ways. So a lot of times, that individual will be communicating with an American. Does it necessarily involve espionage? No, no, could just be.

random emails or calls, could be spam emails, what have you. And that gets collected. That's called incidental collection. Now what the FBI and the federal government have contended is that because that information was gathered legally via FISA, they can look at it even though it's an American without a warrant. And FISA 702, when it was renewed, yep, you can do that. On top of that,

the federal government can purchase publicly available information that you put out there. So if you have a Gmail account, yeah, well, it's free. If it's free, that means you're the product. It means all the data that Google is gathering on you, they have, they can sell because you checked yes on the user agreement. The FBI can purchase that information because of Pfizer.

So that means that the government steals, I mean, taxes money from you to fund an agency which takes that money and turns around and buys information on you. So you've funded your own demise. That's what FISA has on the table right now. And then when you combine it with, and we can even link it to the cash Patel leaks, with the counterintelligence capabilities that exist within an FBI, which is authorized to open up a case on anyone

STEVE FRIEND (01:05:13.964)

They don't even have to be a foreign spy. They can open up a case, full investigation with full ability to send subpoenas out, search warrants, get all that information because they think you could be the victim of an intelligence operation. Well, we think the Russians are trying to recruit Keith because he has key access. Well, let's open up a case on Keith.

KEITH MALINAK (01:05:36.849)

vodka too. That's that's probably a tell, I'd say.

STEVE FRIEND (01:05:41.39)

So this is a tool and it's being used to justify the war on drugs, which again, it's a counterintelligence tool. So it has nothing to do with drug cartels, but now we're labeling them foreign terrorist organizations. So we need it. And now we're seeing the president coming out saying, well, we need it because of the kinetic operation, definitely not a war in Iran. How dare you call me a stewardess? I'm a flight progress coordinator.

KEITH MALINAK (01:06:08.682)

Ignore the bill. That's a Friday artifact right there. okay. Yeah, that's fun because when it's our guys that have all of the levers of.

STEVE FRIEND (01:06:20.27)

And look, I'm hardly championing the Democrats who are all now against renewing FISA. I'm just saying the enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy. And we can have some cross-sectional interests here, or intersecting interests. You don't want FISA. I don't want FISA, but I didn't want FISA before. You can be my ally right now.

KEITH MALINAK (01:06:42.816)

And how long is this renewal supposed to be for?

STEVE FRIEND (01:06:45.538)

Well, that's going to be the ultimate question. I think that they will probably push it out beyond the next election cycle. So then you're looking at probably a three year renewal, something to that effect.

KEITH MALINAK (01:06:58.702)

That's just incredible. And that segues nicely. You kind of gave us a little foreshadowing. Does Kash Patel emails being hacked by the Iranians? That happened when he was the nominee and I was as loud as anybody. Yes, make Kash Patel the FBI director. So why is this story of the Iranians hacking his email?

or at least what was it? No, I'm sorry. The report last November was that the FBI, hell, let Steve tell it,

STEVE FRIEND (01:07:36.43)

Yeah. Well, it was reported November of 2024. after the election, before the inauguration, but Kashpadel had been named as the likely nominee. And it was reported that the Iranians had hacked into him and that they had gotten this information. We didn't know what the information was. So the new revelation we just got was some of the information that they were able to glean, which might be his porn habits. And he seems to take lots of pictures having parties, but

He's not with anybody, so he seems a little bit lonely and pathetic.

KEITH MALINAK (01:08:09.263)

Is some of the stuff out there where I see him dancing, is that real?

STEVE FRIEND (01:08:14.43)

No, I think that that's artificial intelligence, but the the spider cash thing is definitely very weird where he's using spider cash as an account name and then you look at his ridiculous challenge coin that he had made for himself, which is a Punisher logo and it has a spider in the eye sockets. So I think that's accurate. So what you should know is again, this was revealed before the inauguration. What you should

appreciate though is this is a foreign entity who was backing a would-be individual with access to the soon-to-be president. He is a likely victim of an intelligence operation. That would be the Iranians would try to coerce or co-opt Cash Patel to give them valuable information about Donald Trump, right? He could be a likely victim. Well, that means the FBI opened up a full counterintelligence investigation on Cash Patel.

KEITH MALINAK (01:09:11.522)

The Joe Biden FBI.

STEVE FRIEND (01:09:13.518)

Yes, and the current FBI would still be doing it and they do it to everybody. Which might explain his quick descent into being the douche that he is right now. Because maybe he walked in and said, hey, know, it sure would be shame if everybody found out about Spider Cash and the other stuff. That could be, in fact, I don't think that Cash Mattel is a man of character. I think he willingly went along with it. But the overall point is the FBI

had access to all this information as well.

KEITH MALINAK (01:09:47.764)

It, you do wonder, you do wonder. Again, our.

STEVE FRIEND (01:09:54.094)

Look Mike Johnson, but take Mike Johnson, right? Okay. He he went back completely 180 on the Pfizer renewal He was I'm killing Pfizer and then he went into the skiff and got a briefing that Thomas Massey's come out and said I was in the briefing there was nothing in there that was revelatory at all I don't know what the heck he's talking about. Yeah, but do you think the speaker of the house might be the victim of a Intelligence operation might be the victim that they could look at

KEITH MALINAK (01:10:21.656)

Tell.

STEVE FRIEND (01:10:21.852)

Was he shown something in the skiff about himself that they had access to?

KEITH MALINAK (01:10:26.082)

There's so much that's shocking that we forget about. That's because there's so much shocking stuff that happens. You just said that and I was like, that's right. I remember. I remember when I saw that and I thought, what the hell? Cause he's standing in the hallway. They're at the Capitol explaining his change.

STEVE FRIEND (01:10:46.488)

He, he was the deciding vote to make it a tie. The speaker never votes traditionally unless it's a tie. They kind of do the JD Vance vice president thing. You have to break the tie and he didn't have to vote because it was going to go away. He voted in order to make it a tie and he voted to make it a tie so that the warrant requirement wouldn't pass for.

KEITH MALINAK (01:11:12.718)

This is, I mean, this is John Roberts Obamacare ruling.

STEVE FRIEND (01:11:16.782)

Hmm. no, that was a genius. It was a secret plan along the whole way. John Roberts, who, Hey, you ever find out who leaked the Dobbs decision? That was one of the promises that Dan Bongino made when he was the co-deputy director of the FBI for 292 days. We're to get the Dobbs leaker, even though that's not illegal. We got to get it. We got to get it. He was John Roberts. Can we all kind of surmise that that's what it was?

KEITH MALINAK (01:11:41.838)

you know, we were also supposed to get I was told I was told that we were getting close to revealing the the White House drugs that were that was the thing I was told was gonna happen and then the J six pipe bomber

STEVE FRIEND (01:11:52.238)

Mm-hmm.

KEITH MALINAK (01:11:59.88)

We got one of them, right?

STEVE FRIEND (01:12:03.15)

Sure did. You got cocaine sniffed. I think the cocaine belonged to the Biden dog. Because Commander was biting everybody. had to have removed him.

KEITH MALINAK (01:12:13.172)

They had to remove him, you know. Look, dogs are reflective of their owners. So I just, I want to say, so you know what, my dogs are loud, but they're generally kind, you know, and always tired. I'm telling you. mean, they reflect, although that new one is, she's a little hellion. Okay, so.

STEVE FRIEND (01:12:17.954)

That's true.

STEVE FRIEND (01:12:36.59)

That's why I don't have dogs. I don't need to give away the cards and play close to the vest here.

KEITH MALINAK (01:12:41.054)

the I don't know how often it was every other week. The guys that I played with are really cool. They let me have like a little Post-It Note cheat sheet. that'd be fun. You and I play poker. We're like, on a second. I think I got something. I got three of this color. So that's how I played.

STEVE FRIEND (01:12:57.703)

I would need one. don't know the rules of poker.

KEITH MALINAK (01:13:08.352)

And they let me, I invented a game. It was called the three card Mali. You can do five card Mali. I don't remember the rules. I just remember I invented them while drinking. Okay, so let's see here. So we just talked about the J6 pipe bomber, which I don't know if this audience has noticed, but our mutual friend has been in the news quite a bit lately. Yeah. So our buddy Steve Baker was fired.

by my employer and his until early last week, the Blaze. And that's a whole mess over there with that. typically when the government metals with stuff, bad things happen. And in fact, I, is it on the printer? Oh, here it is. got it. I'm sorry. I couldn't remember. I printed up this story. Where are my glasses? I have three glasses up. I swear none of them.

Good, I've been putting them on and on I think this is not good Hang on a second. I want here we go. Here's what everybody's been talking about from Steve because Steve Baker he started a website called Veritas it's too fancy for me Veritas regnat calm. I think that's a

STEVE FRIEND (01:14:25.706)

Truth reigns. Yes. OK. means in Latin.

KEITH MALINAK (01:14:28.844)

Make it TruthRains. Go check and see GoDaddy. It's truthrains.com available. Anyway, so the Veritas Regnat, just go to Steve Baker's ex-deal, Steve Baker USA. This paragraph people are picking up on here. In early November, FBI Director Cash Patel phoned Blaze founder Glenn Beck and sought to have Baker fired.

This was days before Baker appeared on the Glenn Beck program to promote the November 8th investigative article. Now, first I'll say, Steve Friend, you have some personal experience with Cash Patel and job termination that maybe you will want to enlighten people that may not be familiar with your situation. But what do you make of that singular paragraph there from the Steve Baker story?

STEVE FRIEND (01:15:18.478)

Unsurprising in light of the connection between that and my own firing because they were scrambling and the timing of it is we'll say serendipitous because the the story as it goes is that Shawnee Kirchhoff the Individual who Steve Baker and Johanna men alleged matches the gait analysis for the pipe bomber from January 5th 6th failed a polygraph

She filed a polygraph while in the employee of the CIA because after working for the Capitol police, she went to work for the CIA. She still works for the CIA. That doesn't happen. But she files a polygraph, her name emerges from their story and their reporting. And then in short order, the FBI starts and spins up an investigation of her. And then a couple of days go by and not only does a call get made from Cash Patel,

as it's being reported here to Glenn Beck, you have former co-deputy director for 292 days, Dan Bongino, placing calls to Tom Massey, essentially telling him they're trying to clear her. meanwhile-

KEITH MALINAK (01:16:34.254)

Say that again. that again. The deputy director, you say 292 days it was?

STEVE FRIEND (01:16:39.338)

Well, former co-deputy director because it sucked so bad that he had to be sidesaddled to Andrew Bailey.

KEITH MALINAK (01:16:46.912)

Okay, and so he said, what now?

STEVE FRIEND (01:16:50.626)

He told Tom Massey that the FBI was trying to clear Shani Kirkhauf. Not the job of the FBI. Their job is to just investigate and find out what happened.

KEITH MALINAK (01:16:56.878)

Why is the FBI-

KEITH MALINAK (01:17:02.85)

Huh, okay.

STEVE FRIEND (01:17:04.204)

And he also told Massey he was going to fund a lawsuit, a defamation lawsuit on her behalf as the co-deputy director of the FBI. some problems here for just the intimidation for the nation's lead law enforcement agency to have their top two or the top guy and then the top half of a guy making calls to members of Congress and to people within media trying to kill this story.

is wholly inappropriate. That is the tailor-made case example of weaponized government.

KEITH MALINAK (01:17:43.116)

What would be the motivation of the government to even get involved with that if that's where the facts were leading?

STEVE FRIEND (01:17:50.434)

because the facts were leading there and they did not want those facts to emerge because there's a narrative that has to be maintained. So this goes back to a prior story that Joe Hanneman and Steve Baker broke and they were leaning on this. it was, the narrative was clear. It was going to come out in October of last year that the pipe bombs were a training exercise. And

My buddy, Kyle Seraphine and I and Joe Hanneman did a podcast together and we talked about it we, all three of us and Kyle and me specifically because we have experience in law enforcement just blew that narrative to pieces. It made no sense because if there was a training exercise, they would immediately come out afterwards and said like, hey, no, no, why is there a reward? Like that was us guys. You know, it was an honest mistake, right? There's all these problems with it. So then it became panic time when the

Shani Kirchhoff, who was already being surveilled, was put in front of a polygraph and failed. And then they said, no, now the entire plot is going to come out and the plot going to be likely to the effect of, it was a giant government plot where you had multiple agencies involved or Capitol police would plant pipe bombs, ATF was clearing those pipe bombs, the FBI was doing mop up duty, the CIA was hiding the culprit of it within their employ.

You had the recovery of the pipe bombs by Capitol police officers who on video found the pipe bombs within 11 minutes faster than the dogs could. They leave and immediately go to the one place that the pipe bomber sat at for 30 seconds, look under there. And then the pipe bomber had moved the pipe bomb from there to a second location. So they immediately go to the other place. And then they stopped looking. If you had found two pipe bombs, would you stop looking? No, they stopped looking. And then one of those guys is now

a liaison between the FBI and the Capitol Police. Then you had the lead investigator for Thomas Massey, who has been on it since the beginning. The lead investigator for him, Marshall Yates, was hired by the FBI as an assistant director for Congressional Affairs. Marshall Yates, who did not have to pass a polygraph because Cash Patel gave him a waiver for that, like he did for Dan Bongino, then called Tom Massey and said that I'm going to charge members of your

STEVE FRIEND (01:20:15.532)

Staff with crimes that they keep doing this pipe bomb stuff. So lots of smoke involved here and it implicates the government across the board and they have to do the Nancy Pelosi thing. They have to preserve the narrative of January 6th because that would implicate the government and would necessitate if everything I'm saying here is is born out. The American people are going to say, you guys did a Reich dog fire. So

This agency has to go away. There's no redemption. We can't say, OK, you messed up on that one Amy Nelson case, but it was probably a couple of bad actors. No, it has to be dissolved. And that would be FBI, Capitol Police, ATF, CIA, ODNI, DOJ. All of them would have to lose their fiefdoms. So what's the easier option? Bite the bullet and lose the accoutrements of having a private jet that you can go in a booty call to Nashville anytime you want?

or, spike the story, find a patsy who happens to be an autistic My Little Pony fan, who doesn't physically resemble the pipe bomber in any way, shape, or form, and then lead the American people on a narrative that this 30-year-old who goes to 7-Eleven to buy himself a Coke and a pizza slights every day because he's so regimented and can barely speak, that he eluded an $11 billion law enforcement agency, the greatest

preeminent premier law enforcement agency for the country for half of a decade, having never used, having never changed his habit of life and having used his own car and credit card and cell phone. And he's on video driving at times when the pipe bomber's walking, but he's our man. So we have to find a crime.

KEITH MALINAK (01:22:03.438)

weren't some of the bomb making materials purchased by this Brian Cole fellow after January 6th?

STEVE FRIEND (01:22:10.242)

They were purchased before the election that he allegedly was protesting with his pipe bombs. And then he told the FBI that he threw them all away afterwards. And then he went and bought more of the exact same pipe bomb making materials.

KEITH MALINAK (01:22:25.666)

get it.

STEVE FRIEND (01:22:26.51)

His shoe size is a 12 and the pipe armor is a nine. The pipe armor is walking around adjusting a bra. I mean, it is 2026, so I don't want to assume a gender. The pipe armor has a very distinct limp that matches Shawnee Kirkhoff's.

KEITH MALINAK (01:22:43.15)

Okay, so hang on, was honest question. I thought some of the evidence was that the items were purchased after January 6th, so it couldn't have made sense on.

STEVE FRIEND (01:22:55.438)

They said he wiped his phone hundreds of times to show operational security. He started wiping his phone a year and a half after January 6th.

KEITH MALINAK (01:23:04.718)

Oh, oh, oh, hold on a second. But I was told that he already confessed.

STEVE FRIEND (01:23:09.42)

Yes, yeah. After they took away his ability to drown out sound, this is one of these guys who wears headphones because of oversensitivity of hearing. If you see in his booking photo, he's wearing the headphones. That never happens. That doesn't happen in a booking photo. You don't get a problem? to do that. Yeah. No, no. To calm him down. So for two hours, they hammered him and hammered and hammered him. And finally they leave the room where there's no clocks. And he's, from what I understand, there's this

KEITH MALINAK (01:23:21.45)

And then it's just.

STEVE FRIEND (01:23:37.792)

element to him. He's obsessed with clocks and time and is very regimented. No clocks, freaks out, doesn't know how long it is. They come back in, he tells them everything they want to know and he says it had something to do with the IRA, like Ireland IRA and the motivation for that. And then also, even though he comes from a far leftist family, he was and he's not political, he just felt there was something wrong. So he had dropped two inert devices on January 6th.

So there's a whole host of problems here. They're not going to be able to bring forward a successful prosecution if it was in fact a fair system, but it's not a fair system. even then, even then with his new revelations about the failed polygraph, I think that we're going to have to do the break glass in case of emergency, which is what I've been saying for months. And that is that they're going to give Brian Cole Jr. a pardon. They're going to say that

Trump pardons for January 6th apply to Brian Cole Jr. And the DOJ will fake fight it, but effectively yield to that so that they can say, well, he's free. mean, who's going to protest that? The case is closed. We got our man. We could just move off. know, dang it, it's that Judge Boasberg. It's that Judge Boasberg who did it to us again. We better reelect Mike Johnson and Jim Jordan so we can impeach him.

KEITH MALINAK (01:25:03.52)

I this honestly right right this sounds like and maybe it's still going on. What do you think that mentally tortured this guy? He's been unjustly behind bars since December 4th. They are. They're destroying him. It's again. I go back to the whole thing I said earlier. I mean this just. What America is this man? This is just gross and this is with our.

It's our guys, rah rah, our guys have the power, yay. Do you think, and I'm totally giving them the benefit of the doubt here. I wanna say I'm playing devil's advocate. I really think in this case, I'm playing devil's advocate. Could this administration, the FBI good guys, Cash Patel and Dan Bongino and all the like, could they have gotten in there and earnestly followed the facts and it didn't-

lead to Brian Cole initially, well ever. But do you think that they were trying to find the real bomber and then the machine above them, whoever that would be, came in and said, whoa, whoa, let me introduce you to this Patsy we got lined up in case you got this far.

STEVE FRIEND (01:26:22.164)

I don't think that they're doing investigations at their level. They're getting briefed, right? I think it's entirely possible and actually likely that Cash Patel and Dan Bongino had no idea who Shawnee Kirchhoff was. And then she fails this polygraph. And then the people who are briefing them come and say, no, no, we're clearing her, we got this other guy. And they're just taking it on good faith that these people are briefing them.

And now they're invested, their reputations are staked on this. And now, even though all the facts are presenting themselves out to the contrary, to Ryan Cole's guilt because he's not, he's innocent, they're going to, for own self-preservation purposes, move forward with it.

KEITH MALINAK (01:27:07.788)

Do you think that they are going, if that's the scenario here, are they going along with it just because they're so invested in it or is there something more sinister? In other words, does somebody have something over them like we referred to about an hour ago in the show?

STEVE FRIEND (01:27:28.712)

Yes, that could be entirely possible. I think it's also as equally possible that they got the briefing of, if this comes out, the FBI goes away and think of all the terrorists that are going to bomb the country. Think what this knowledge would be in the hands as propaganda for our enemies if I ran were to find out about this. Those are legitimate.

KEITH MALINAK (01:27:52.994)

Ha ha ha.

STEVE FRIEND (01:27:56.078)

Arguments that are made that were made to whistleblowers who came forward with information to dissuade them We know what you're saying is true. We know it's right, but if this fell into the hands of our enemies How damaging would it be to our agency the agency that does just so much good? Can't we just overlook this and and look I don't know Brian Cole. I don't from what I understand. He's severely mentally handicapped Is there a chance that he's got

child pornography. And they said, hey, you know what? He needs to go to jail anyway. Let's just, I can kind of justify it. He's a, he's a pedophile, you know, and if it's not this crime, it's another one. And I don't, not going to shed a tear for him losing his freedom. You could see all those things playing into it.

KEITH MALINAK (01:28:48.544)

the

STEVE FRIEND (01:28:54.762)

That story has evolved man that story has so the reason that we were told that Shani kirkhoff had been cleared Was that there was a video that was somehow? Timestamped of her playing with her puppies at the exact time that the pipe bomb. Yeah was being laid, right? Yeah, that's literally I mean and at the time you're like she works the CIA You don't think they could timestamp a video. That's not good enough. But alright fine fine and then Steve Baker and

KEITH MALINAK (01:29:11.159)

That clears her.

STEVE FRIEND (01:29:21.75)

and Johannemann went out and proved that she doesn't have puppies. She has one dog. It's an old dog. So there's an inconsistency. Well, you know, potatoes, potatoes. And then it came out that it's actually a video of the dog and they think her voice is in the background and nobody's been able to project a voice to a place they aren't before, on a speakerphone of a telephone. I think the pipe armor was on the phone at one point in the video or just a regular recording.

Or it's not her voice, it's just a voice.

KEITH MALINAK (01:29:56.835)

So hold on, because I heard that the Brian Cole defense team has subpoenaed that video. Maybe we'll know something soon.

STEVE FRIEND (01:30:04.078)

I doubt it because it'll be national security. It's not germane because you're dealing with the judicious, the justice system in Washington DC where they're going to err on the side of the regime be the status quo.

KEITH MALINAK (01:30:22.806)

So I just want your memory banks, just I'm talking to you and the audience. Let's start, just start with COVID. Just take yourself back to 2020 and just think of the incredible things that this government has perpetrated on you and your family and the threats against you if you didn't take a certain Vax.

Let's say that this J6 Pipe Bomber story that Steve Baker has the actual facts for it. Think of so many things. I just picked out two. Hell, if you want to go back a little bit further, we can talk about Obama spying on journalists. There's so many things.

If this population hasn't gotten out in the streets for some of these incredible things, are they ever going to protest anything ever again? And if not, then where does this lead us? Because it's not a good place. is is slippery slope doesn't apply to this. We are falling off the side of a cliff.

And and and I just wherever this road goes, it's not a good place because it just feels like fewer and fewer good people are standing up. And what happens when they do? Look at my guest today, Steve Friend. Their lives are absolutely ruined, man. And and and so what's the incentive to stand up and do the right thing and stick up for truth? And Steve Baker is just

I mean, gosh, he's got an article about threats and suspicious death, somebody that was helping him investigate his own heart issue. Again, it's absolutely demoralizing, especially when you take a step back and you go, my gosh, these are our guys doing what's happening here. And I'm not implicating anything nefarious specific to this administration.

KEITH MALINAK (01:32:41.902)

to what has happened to Steve Baker or the federal employee that was apparently assisting them in this investigation. I'm just saying that our guys, in quotes, are in power, the team that we wanted running the show, and this is where we're at? What in the hell? I just, it's absolutely depressing.

STEVE FRIEND (01:33:08.696)

Well, I mean, you're on the on the issue that I've talked about a lot, and that is the founding document for a country, our declaration. It lists off all their grievances that they have with the crown. But in the preamble, they explain that the default setting of mankind is to suffer while it's sufferable. This is a last resort. We really don't want to do this. We'd love to be Englishmen. Right. And I think if you evolve it further, and we talked about China before.

China kind of figured it out. Running over people with tanks doesn't go that well. But if you keep them comfortable, they'll suffer a lot. And we are as a culture, as a globe, really, but in this country specifically, the richest country that's ever existed, if you go into a golden corral, you have more food at your fingertips than Genghis Khan had at the height of the Mongolian empire, all right?

And life is so darn comfortable that people will put up with a lot of despotism. Go back to coronavirus. I'm sorry, I don't call it COVID. Because I don't, it bend to the semantics of the World Health Organization, which invented the term COVID because they thought coronavirus was anti-Mexican. So coronavirus in 2020 taught us something. And I was, I'll admit I was wrong. I thought, man,

There's too much don't tread on me in this country. There's too many tatted up dudes who are listening to Rogan and doing their jujitsu and you're not gonna keep them down. There's not enough Netflix. But really what it showed us was that we were very comfortable and malleable as a result and willing to go along with just intrusions onto our liberties that had never been attempted before. And I think another element of it is that

because of our comfort level, the analogy I like to use is my, you'll see like older folks who are really like well off, they're established and retired and they're living their golden years, right? And then they'll lose their patience over the smallest thing and they'll go get so angry, like Joe Biden style, angry, right? Out of nowhere. And I think that's because the human emotions

STEVE FRIEND (01:35:35.586)

Stretch the gambit. It's like a muscle car and unless you rev that engine It's it just doesn't get scratch that itch and to back to our level of comfort. We didn't have any fear and I think that people thought hey, you know what two weeks zombie apocalypse like we could kind of feel a little bit scared it'll be kind of fun it'll be a story to tell one day and and then we went along with it and There was enough Netflix apparently and uber eats and Amazon delivered and government stimmy checks

And people forgot the fundamental idea of being an American and the trite saying about being, about America is that America is an idea. And I have always said that America is an action verb. You have to do America and that involves your actions at a local level and just being involved. How many people don't even know their own congressman's name?

But they can tell you every single one of the Kardashian sisters and who they're married to today because it's comfortable and it's fun. And the sad reality that we're the people like yourself and the folks in your audience who are actually hungry for the information is that we are vastly outnumbered by people who do have the power because they all have the power of the vote who are just not genuinely concerned. Or if they see something that kind of gives them the bad case of the fields, they can.

change the channel and delude themselves in something else or think, oh, you that's just a one-off and they're just not paying attention. Now the upshot to that is, you know, I said the elected officials are one chapter ahead. They're really not that smart. That means there's only 435 of them in Congress. It doesn't take that many people to get there. It's just working yourself through the mush to actually achieve the change you need. And that's going to happen.

much quicker at a county level, at a municipal level than it is at a federal level.

KEITH MALINAK (01:37:35.342)

the You should see my city council meetings, man. Okay, well, look, I'm sorry that we speak truth here. And if that truth is a downer, so be it. I'm sorry, but that's just the way the conversation goes because we speak in reality here. And I hope that justice is served.

with the J6 pipe bomber story. It's gonna be interesting to see how this thing plays out, but I think you're right on the pardon thing. I think you're absolutely right on that. I wanna get back, steer it back to Cash Patel here. This is a video here that's making the rounds here. He had a hearing a couple months ago, and what's this? People are like, hey, who's he signaling there? What's this ear tug there?

because he does it a couple of times after he's reading something and people are suggesting that he's signaling there because he's reading something, a directive or something. He's just kind of saying, hey, I got the message loud and clear. What's your take on something like this?

STEVE FRIEND (01:38:45.4)

Well, I don't know the context for it. have to find out what was being discussed, what he was being directed to read. But that looks like clear signaling to me. Anytime that I've dealt with undercovers or playing close people, anything around the head was something to look at. And I mean, I don't think he's telling the guy to swing away. It's not a squeeze bunt here. He might've been signaling to, to another member.

KEITH MALINAK (01:39:05.486)

Steal second.

STEVE FRIEND (01:39:15.63)

to interrupt in some way. Because I think that there's a lot of...

KEITH MALINAK (01:39:21.536)

It may not be some man in the high castle, right? It may be just somebody up there on the highest.

STEVE FRIEND (01:39:26.126)

Yeah, I need a break here. need I need you to interject and give me some sort of air cover. Having sat in one of those hearings, I ever told you about the hearing that I testified in, the experience?

KEITH MALINAK (01:39:37.742)

I watched it, tell me what your story is. Before I knew you, I watched every minute of you and Garrett. What do you mean? I'm a nerd.

STEVE FRIEND (01:39:44.056)

Sorry.

STEVE FRIEND (01:39:48.12)

There's a few things that people need to know because we all say that Washington DC and politics is Hollywood for ugly people. It is pure production. I mean, I went in there knowing that and it still blew my mind. So you're sitting backstage essentially, right? Like you're waiting to go on the stage.

KEITH MALINAK (01:40:09.804)

Yeah, where is backstage in a hearing like that?

STEVE FRIEND (01:40:13.666)

behind where the members are seated, they each kind of go to their own corners. Like they have their own entrance, like the one's the Democrat entrance and one's the Republican entrance. They have their own meeting rooms and they have a conference room and bathroom and they had lunch if we wanted it afterwards, that sort of thing. But we got a hype speech from Jordans and you guys go out there, they're gonna try to insult you, they're gonna try to get you angry. You can't reply, you have to just take it.

because you could be in big trouble if you do. So they make sure that you're going to be a good boy. Then you come on out and you sit down and what you realize is that most of the members are not in the room. The TV cameras are set up in a way so that they focus in on the guy or gal who's asking the questions. It's their time. And most of the time they don't pan back out that often because the other members are not in the room. They're doing other stuff. I mean,

They're probably meeting with lobbyists or donors or something like that. And then their staff member is sitting in the back and just texts them when it's their time to come in. So a couple of minutes before they text them and every single person, every single member, they have a bottle of water set up where they're going to sit. So they will come in a couple of minutes before their time, open the bottle, crack it open and down about a third of it, and then set it down to make it look like they've been sitting there sipping their water the whole time. It's completely orchestrated.

and then they ask you questions and it's their time. They can pontificate all they want. They don't have to ask any questions. It's really not about what you would think a hearing is, which to me, it's an opportunity. It is a show, right? I did depositions before that. I gave them all the information to set them up, to set me up with good questions so that we could lay out a case, but that's not what it was. It was no interrogation. It was not a...

Cross-examination it was just we're gonna yell about Donald Trump We're gonna call you a traitor and and everybody just guys get their zingers in one way or another and then Sitting there at the time. They told us that everybody was gonna get two rounds of questions So you're looking at the time. my gosh seem to like a 10-12 hour day and then what I started to realize was as a day was going that they were only gonna get one round of questions in because

STEVE FRIEND (01:42:33.038)

At that point, I had spoken publicly, it was in May of 2023, so I'd been out kind of doing the public thing for about five or six months. And my counterpart, Garrett Avoyle, he had not. And if anybody knows who Garrett is, you should follow him on Twitter, it's at GOB actual. He's back with the FBI now, so he's not really posting on there, but you see pictures of him. He looks like a mountain man. He's a giant, hulking human being. He's like 6'3", 230, 240, just terrifying.

But in my mind, I'm thinking, they're not going to come at me that hard. They know that I can comport myself quite well. I'm not going to get up and flip the tables over if they insult me, but they're going to go after this mountain man. And sure enough, they did. And what they didn't know was that Garret O'Boyle is extremely well spoken. He's extremely meek and he is ready to go and is not going to fall into that trap too. So when they went after him and he kind of held up his end.

That's when they just started to yell about reclaiming my time.

KEITH MALINAK (01:43:37.748)

Yeah, man. you know, I had some other things here. I kind of wanted to touch on kind of sticking in the cash realm there. back to the Charlie Kirk assassination where he tweeted out, we got him. and that of course was erroneous. it was somebody else, that they had arrested and interrogated and that didn't lead anywhere.

And this is different than the George Zinn, the guy who said it was me, you know. But I don't know if you wanted to comment on that since we were talking about cash. But if you have any thoughts on that, please share them, because I still don't think that that his lack of professionalism during that has ever has ever been reprimanded. mean, it just it just seems like that just went away. Like, that's just crazy cash on the Twitter's. But but.

But before we move off of Charlie Kirk, remind me because I have a fact from that case that I don't know if I have bad information, but I need some clarification. But is there any thoughts on the cash front since we were talking about him as it relates to that murder?

STEVE FRIEND (01:44:50.286)

So from what I understand, Cash Patel is desperate for dad's approval. He's showed because he's been such a terrible catastrophe as the FBI director. He can't wait to get out there and claim they got somebody or claim they need help when they do have somebody because he's getting briefed by people trying to make him look bad. The Brown shooter, Charlie Kirk assassinated, it's happened multiple times where he claims the exact opposite of what's true on social media. So my sources tell me and this has been multiple sources.

that there was a conference call after Charlie Kirk gets shot where Patel, Bongino, and all of the chief executives around the country are basically on this conference call. And instead of saying, what are we going to do from a leadership perspective? How are we going to approach this case? It is basically Patel and Bongino planning out how they're going to tweet this case. First, I'll tweet this, and then you reply or quote tweet that. That was what their

priorities were at the time, public relations. They're in crisis. You're to, anybody in crisis is going to lean on their strengths. Bongino, Patel, they perceive their strength to be social media influencing. That's what they went to. Now, when Patel gets embarrassed, the agents are interviewing somebody who's wrongfully detained. The call goes out, you need to find a crime on this person so that I don't look bad. We got our man, find a crime.

KEITH MALINAK (01:46:18.222)

Whose America is this?

STEVE FRIEND (01:46:25.378)

We got our checkup. There's no question about it. Right. We have a law enforcement agency with intelligence collecting capabilities who is perceived to be nonpartisan or at least controlled if it is partisan controlled by the good guys right now. But really ultimately it's defaulted back to what is good for the bureau, which is why I got punished because I said things that embarrassed the bureau.

I wasn't trying to embarrass a bureau if I was trying to embarrass them I was trying to embarrass them back to a right position to do the right thing But the ultimate sin in the FBI is embarrassing the FBI You can overcome huge Huge mistakes. I've said earlier people having affairs getting caught having affairs in the office People in I think it was it wrote down. She was in a state of undress The she I'm talking about she runs in top

the National Threat Operations Center, pictured with Cash Patel. You could have failures, catastrophic failures like Jen Moore, who was the intelligence special agent in charge of Washington, D.C. on January 6th. The worst intelligence failure since 9-11. She was promoted, executive assistant director of human resources. You have Jacqueline McGuire. Jacqueline McGuire, she shot a dog in Philadelphia city limits. And that was after approving the

Arrest of Mark Howe, the pro-life protester. She got promoted twice. She wanted to be in charge of training, giving out the guns to the new agents. You could overcome a lot. You could overcome a lot. Just be a good soldier, do what you're told, never say no to a bad idea, and do not make the bureau look bad. You can make yourself look bad, just not the bureau.

KEITH MALINAK (01:48:15.714)

When you hear one of these stories of, it's time and time again, you just went through several of them, of your professional peers, I guess, failing up, does that upset you or does the Jimmy Buffett line, if we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane? mean, where do you land on that? Because that would be frustrating as hell, man.

STEVE FRIEND (01:48:40.13)

I mean, I go back and forth. You would never think of anything else, and I kind of rarely do think of anything else now because it is incredibly frustrating that people who are ill-equipped or don't even appreciate the opportunity that they have to do something are rewarded. I mean, that's just fundamentally evil. I put the different categories of people in an FBI into a couple of different buckets. Number one was my bucket, the people that love the job.

I had conversations with one individual I'm thinking of right now. We would probably have the same conversation once a month. It will be on a Friday on federal Friday. Federal Friday is every Friday. Everybody leaves early. They leave a couple hours early except he and I, because we love the job. And he would come over to my desk at very end of the day and he'd say, they think they're getting over on us, but we're getting over on them, aren't we? It's like, yeah, man, this is the best job ever. I can't believe they pay me this to do this job. That's a small group of people. Other people are just, it's a job.

professionals. And then there the people that are resentful that you ask them to do their job. Those are the DMV types. And then you have the political climbers, the people that never say no to the bad idea, that will do and say whatever it is necessary so that they can ascend a ladder because they know at their core they couldn't ascend any other ladder other than the one that has been artificially constructed for people like them to ascend because they can recognize the simp

KEITH MALINAK (01:49:44.897)

Hahaha.

STEVE FRIEND (01:50:06.04)

people that are like themselves. And they promote just those people into positions of power and esteem and wealth and future prospects. And look, yours truly, it's not a one-off. This has happened multiple times to me where I have now, I've been fired by the FBI a second time because I was accused of having threatened the life of the FBI director when I very publicly said, I think that he's putting Brian Cole in prison to

make himself look good and he deserves to go to jail for that. That's not a threat. And in fact, if I threaten the life of the director, I think that there would be a arrest warrant put out for me, but never was, but publicly besmirched my reputation, put it out to the media. And I have been applying for jobs. I've been offered jobs. I've accepted those offers for jobs and then had those job offers rescinded within a day. Because you embarrass the bureau.

So calls were made or just you just Google my name and it'll say that I'm some sort of conspiracy theorist or, know, I threatened a FBI director, right? I should belong next to Brian Cole. I should be cellies with them at this point. Meanwhile, other guys and gals are going along within the bureau. They are thriving financially.

KEITH MALINAK (01:51:27.502)

living comfortably. Mm hmm. Yeah. Um, and that that line that you keep repeating, don't embarrass the bureau. Do you think that ultimately that is what became the predominant mantra of the J six pipe bomber case?

STEVE FRIEND (01:51:47.618)

I think it's the Bureau itself as the mop up end of that, yes. But I also think that it is a legitimacy issue. I mean, if you knew nothing else other than that plot, that Reichstag fire plot, it would be the death knell in any objectively good country and government to just get rid of those elements of the government. There would be no justification for it.

That's one of the most egregious cross-different agencies and departments examples that we can come up with recently, but that's only one. I mean, I've used these examples multiple times. If you knew nothing else other than the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up, the FBI has to go, right? If you knew nothing else other than Crossfire Hurricane, well, the FBI's got to go, right? If you knew nothing else other than

The FBI saying that it was misinformation that there was going to be foreigners voting in elections in, I think it was Pennsylvania, after having intercepted fake IDs for illegals in Pennsylvania, then you would say, well, they gotta go.

But every single time, it's an evil that's sufferable, apparently. I guess people are just deluded that they don't think that this is an existential threat. Oh, it's not involving me. I'm not doing it wrong. It doesn't matter if you've done anything wrong.

KEITH MALINAK (01:53:19.168)

And it's honestly it's like it's like when I see all of this chaos and all the stuff that we tolerate, are we still standing as a nation because we're just so damn resilient? Are we just lucky? Are we just blessed? Are we just it's maddening that that and I'm pointing at myself, too. I never stood out in the street to I haven't I haven't protested anything since the tea party on April 15th.

2009. And I probably wouldn't even have been in that if I hadn't been invited to MC it there in Charleston, South Carolina, just because I was on the radio, you know, like, I probably wouldn't have shown up out there. It's like, so shame on me as well. But it's like, there's so many of these egregious things. And it's like, are we just that resilient and we can get past and power through all of this stuff? But but at the same time, we're losing liberty piece by piece. And and and

This ends at a dead end, eventually. And I hate this.

STEVE FRIEND (01:54:20.96)

It's a slow creep. This is a huge country. think one of the lessons that we're learning right now from the kinetic operation, definitely not a war, how dare you call me a stewardess, I'm a flight progress coordinator in Iran, is that that's 90 million people in a fairly sizable area. It's not gonna be a cakewalk, right? It's gonna take a long time. Well, we've got 400 million in a much larger area than that. And the government is robust and well-funded and powerful as it is.

we still outnumber them, which is, even as a January 6th reference, if that was a legitimate effort to overthrow the government, you know there were enough people there that they could have all just turned cannibal and taken a bite and eaten everybody in the Capitol who represented the government, and it would have been gone.

KEITH MALINAK (01:55:09.1)

Yeah, right. Yeah, I want to I want to I want to put this up here on the screen here because this is what frustrates me as much as anything we've discussed today is the fact that like crispy critter says it's crazy someone is not taking care of this BS for Steve like seriously like somebody needs to hire this man you want an honorable employee reach out send them a D are you DMS open at real Steve friend

STEVE FRIEND (01:55:31.51)

Open DMs, I take crazy ones too, all the time.

KEITH MALINAK (01:55:34.538)

Somebody send him a job offer that he can't refuse, preferably in northern Florida. Okay, yeah, that's right. Two things, two things. You talked about Cash Patel's handling of the Brown shooting. Remind people why the FBI agents were so late in getting on the ground there in Providence for us after that shooting.

STEVE FRIEND (01:55:56.962)

The plane wasn't available. The pilot was too tired. He had mandatory rest because he had been flying Casper Tell on his social excursions. I believe that one was down to Nashville. Might've been Miami. I can't remember which one. He takes so many.

KEITH MALINAK (01:55:58.67)

Why not? Why wasn't it available?

KEITH MALINAK (01:56:13.166)

I think it was Miami because I remember when you told this I was thinking wow what's down there?

STEVE FRIEND (01:56:18.638)

It wasn't the boondoggle ranch in Texas that he went to or the Scotland trip.

KEITH MALINAK (01:56:24.312)

But remember, he said that he would ground that jet if he were to.

STEVE FRIEND (01:56:28.75)

And then he proceeded to take nine vacations in 2025. Nine vacations.

KEITH MALINAK (01:56:37.486)

Oh, so this is what I want to talk about the Charlie Kirk thing. I thought and I have not been following the Charlie Kirk, the Tyler Robinson trial as closely as I planned to. And that's again, shame on me. I was too busy protesting. See, I can't follow a trial if I'm out in the street protesting all the time. But I thought that Tyler Robinson had expressed to other people online ahead of time.

And so there was kind of a conspiracy in that because my biggest thing right now, and again, I'm not trying to turn this into a Charlie Kirk conspiracy show, but the thing I'm trying to figure out is I do believe that Tyler Robinson is the one who shot Charlie Kirk. I have watched plenty of videos from ballistic experts and seen videos and all sorts of the soft point, all the things on the bullet.

The thing that I was trying to figure out is if there's a larger conspiracy, is he connected to somebody else? And what happened to the people that he was supposedly in communication with beforehand? Do you have some knowledge on that, Steve, that you can reel me in, man?

STEVE FRIEND (01:57:55.15)

Yeah. And I think it is worth going into a little bit here. And it's actually a nice toss back to our buddies, Steve Baker and Joe Hanneman, who broke this story. I think it was August, September of last year. Okay. Everybody's talking about potential overseas connections. I mean, I'm not read in on the file. So I don't know. And I know that's what Joe Kent was digging into when he was butting heads with Cash Patel. But there is a huge potential here. I think Tyler Robinson shot Charlie Kirk. I mean, it's pretty clear to me.

but maybe having connections to other people, maybe being motivated to do by other people or other things. Because the story that Steve and Joe broke was about the discovery of a server farm outside of New York.

KEITH MALINAK (01:58:41.934)

Okay, I remember that story.

STEVE FRIEND (01:58:43.848)

And that is under the investigation of the Department of Homeland Security, even though it should be under the investigation of the FBI, because DHS doesn't trust FBI and refuses to turn it over to them. And what people need to know about these server farms is that they have the potential to create thousands and thousands of chat bot personas that can go out into the internet and infiltrate groups and talk to them.

and find people and potentially radicalize them. And that's a Chinese server farm, who's to say that the robust cyber capabilities of an Iran or another evil doer or Russia, North Korea, wherever couldn't set up some sort of a server farm or set it up in their home country because the internet transcends borders. And then you have a persona that person who is vulnerable to its persuasions could

think that they're interfacing with another person and it's their friend, their only friend in the world and convinces them to go do something that they're not predisposed to do or capable of doing, but for the involvement of that chatbot. And that applies even to our government, which does it now with people, with undercovers in person and increasingly online, online covert employees, OCEs, which find people and encourage them to embrace their worst ideas, do things they're not predisposed to do.

vulnerable people who then go and agree to do those things so that the FBI can come and arrest them for being a terrorist. It goes on all the time. It's an entrapment. I call it the FBI playbook. And what we will see in the next evolution or devolution of that is something that is the AI component to that. And that is the same thing, a chat bot that can go out. And it will be built to American people as something that is good, an objectively good thing.

It'll say, Hey, I'm going to go out and pose as a, as a 13 year old boy and see if a pedophile may take a pass at me. And then law enforcement will have it or, Hey, I'm going go out there as a would be Antifa member and I'm going to see who wants. But what it's going to wind up happening is that they're going to entrap people. So back to Tyler Robinson, I think it's entirely possible that a foreign actor has a chat bot that drove this guy to go do something.

KEITH MALINAK (02:00:57.058)

Hmm. Hmm. Very interesting. Yeah. Is that the guy that is that going to be the same person that that was on was a YouTube communicating with him and then the communications cut off? Or do you think that was actually? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Nope. Back up. Back up. I'm sorry. Timeout. Timeout. Keith back up. Pretend I didn't say that. Yours is the chatbot. I'm thinking of Thomas Crooks being groomed by a federal employee. I

STEVE FRIEND (02:01:25.582)

think he was being groomed, yeah.

Your assassins are all mixed up. But the software it's called Overwatch that law enforcement can use right now with these online identities, these AI chat bots, it can go from platform to platform to platform. It's not limited to one and it can take chats private.

KEITH MALINAK (02:01:48.706)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

STEVE FRIEND (02:01:51.192)

So you didn't know that. So you would honestly think, well, this is definitely a person. We went from telegram and now we're talking on signal. I mean, you wouldn't think that it's the exact same ones and zeros.

KEITH MALINAK (02:02:03.212)

I had no idea, man. I missed that detail. my gosh. Okay. Let me wrap this up. You're awesome as a guest and as a host, check out American Radicals podcast, especially on Spotify. Get over there. That's where I like my podcast. So you should too. Follow Steve on X at real Steve friend. Before we go though, here's my last question and it applies not just to Cash Patel or a Dan Bonjino or to anyone.

I guess in government, but you know what? No. Let me specifically ask you of just cash. Let's just leave it at cash and just be done with it. Do you think, and I'm asking you to hypothesize here. Do you think that he actually, because he was in DC before he was the FBI director, but do you think that he wants to be in government or at some point wanted to be in government to actually do good and was just corrupted?

Or do you think he was always a bad seed? Because I mentioned earlier how I was on the Iraq war and how I regret. Like I should have gone with my gut originally, but eventually I signed on to it and I shouldn't have because I was lied to. And that's where I am with cash kind of in that I was all for him being in there, but now I want him out.

yesterday. And was I just duped? Were we all just duped? Was he really just damaged goods from the start? Or just when you get in that role, that's what happens. Help me to reconcile this, man.

STEVE FRIEND (02:03:50.466)

The answer is yes. So you get in that role and I think that that does happen. They bubble wrap you and they they give you the cool guy stuff. They take you out to see the hostage rescue team and give you the gear and you're flying the helicopters and the plane. That's a nice life.

KEITH MALINAK (02:04:05.506)

And you get the jacket. Don't forget, he's very into the jackets.

STEVE FRIEND (02:04:09.442)

that medium jacket that he stole from a female agent. But I think Patel, from what there's been other reporting and other people who I've talked to who have done investigating on him, his aspirations and ambitions were to be rich and famous. And this was, he identified a niche, a place that he could ingratiate himself. And Donald Trump is, he likes the field tea, right?

the Epstein administration, you got to do that MAGA land acknowledgement. You know, and that has bode well for him. And he found this as an industry, right? He got into the politic commentary and influencing and he stood up kind of a sham charity, which

much to my shame, I helped them do fundraising for because I thought they were doing good. And then since then, I've research on and realized that they were sending money overseas and sending almost no money to the recipients and cash and his vice president were pocketing a quite a handsome payment out to themselves because they were buying merch to sell from themselves. I mean, it's just kind of a ridiculous scheme that he's got. And he's arranged for himself to be ingratiated within the MAGA movement as a person who's famous.

this was a way to do it. had texting corresponds with him and it was, what do you think you're gonna do? And he was like, well, either CIA or FBI. But those are completely different mission sets and different expertise. He just wanted to be something. This was that.

KEITH MALINAK (02:05:43.15)

This was that. Well, lovely. What a strange timeline we're living on, huh? I tell you what, be sure to follow all of these wonderful. Let's see. Like I'm born genius does all my work for me. Thank you. At the Mike show. All these are X handles, by the way, at second floor Dallas, at Jeffy Apologist. It's at real Steve friend and at Amred Amrad pod, which is also on X.

And look at, mean, my goodness, I should be paying Born Genius. Come back tomorrow for Thursday deep dive on childhood vaccines. absolutely. So Steve, any parting thoughts here before we go? I just want you to know that I am grateful that I can call you my friend and I am so sorry. And I say this every time because I feel it, man. I'm so sorry.

for what you have gone through and what you continue to go through. As an American, it pisses me off to see an honorable person such as yourself suffer needlessly while these evil sons of bitches continue to get away with everything. And it just breaks my heart for you and your family. just y'all pray for Steve and pray for all of the people that stand up and blow the whistle and then end up suffering because of it.

STEVE FRIEND (02:07:05.87)

Well, I appreciate it. Let me pay this one forward to you. And I'm going to give a assignment, homework assignment to the at the mic viewership here. Go to Spotify. You got to check out at the mic, even if you watch somewhere else once a week. This is what I tell my audience. This is what Keith is going to start telling you. I'm giving you a preview. Follow at the mic once a week, push play and mute it. Yeah, you don't have to listen to me. to listen to it.

KEITH MALINAK (02:07:35.022)

Don't have to listen.

STEVE FRIEND (02:07:35.751)

Get him to 1500 followers he can monetize that sucker.

KEITH MALINAK (02:07:39.158)

That's is that what it is see I don't even know man. I don't even know that no and and I know it's confusing because there's two at the mics I used to do the the the other one should probably just take it down. I don't even know how to I probably lost the password stuff But this is the logo you're looking for and see the black square with the green lettering if you see the green square well I'm sorry. That's the old show that I again should probably just Remove from being able to locate so I'm the most disorganized person in the world

It's not just limited to this side of the room. It's everywhere. It's definitely hell. It's right here. I mean, I want you to contrast. Look at Steve friend's serious business set up. mean, look at it. So clean. It's just a nice little setting. Go and have like a drink and hang out with Steve. And then mine looks like looks like, I don't know, a cartoon character vomited here in the background.

You know what though, I do need to update. I'm so proud of my pups. They've been so quiet today. So we've done one show, one show without a bark. So kudos to teammates Tanner and Matilda. One show without a bark here on At the Mic. Steve Friend will do it again sometime real soon. Appreciate you buddy. You stay strong out there, okay?

STEVE FRIEND (02:08:57.378)

You got it, man. Have good weekend.